


Bogus, Heinous, Most Egregious

by niikaaa



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niikaaa/pseuds/niikaaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was mostly just a bad idea inspired by a comment made by a friend of mine after we went to see Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure last night. It's not at all in the spirit of the films, and is essentially just an exercise in sadness, because if you're gonna bring up something sad re: a fandom I'm in, I'm probably going to try to write it.</p>
<p>Basically, AU where Rufus never gets involved, Bill and Ted flunk, Ted gets sent to Alaska, and things get super drastic from there. idk either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bogus, Heinous, Most Egregious

Act One: The Not-So-Long Goodbye

“I guess this is it, dude,” Bill said quietly, handing the suitcase over to his best friend.  
  
“I guess so,” Ted replied, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. The shaggy mop contrasted sharply with the ill-fitting suit Ted’s father had insisted he wear. Bill tried not to think about the fact that when Ted got to Alaska, the hair would follow the same bogus path already taken by the “Save the Humans” patch and the orange denim jacket. “Bill, before I depart on this most non-triumphant voyage, I would like to present you with this token of our friendship, so that you will remember me when I am gone.”  
  
Bill took the folded Van Halen t-shirt solemnly, unsure what to say and knowing that he wasn’t expected to say anything.  
  
“Well, sounds like we’re boarding now,” Ted said finally, gesturing vaguely upwards at the sound of the flight announcement. “I…I’d better get going.”  
  
“Goodbye, Ted.”  
  
“Goodbye, Bill.”  
  
With forced smiles on their faces, they air-guitarred together one last time before Ted’s most egregious departure.

Act Two: Call Me Maybe

Weeks passed. At first, Ted wrote often, lamenting the lack of bodacious babes or the heinousness of having to cut his hair, but eventually the letters started coming less frequently, and one day Bill realized that they’d stopped entirely.  
  
Bill attributed it to the fact that Ted was probably just really busy with military school stuff, but there was definitely something troubling about his best friend’s silence.  
  
His fears were confirmed one night when Missy…Mom knocked on the door and handed him the cordless phone.  
  
“It’s for you,” she said. “It’s Ted.”  
  
Bill couldn’t grab the phone fast enough.  
  
“Ted!” he exclaimed. “What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in aaages, dude!”  
  
“Things are especially non-triumphant, Bill,” Ted replied, his voice flat. “Military school is killing me. I’ve been on KP for like, six weeks straight. The only music is this trumpet noise at, like, five in the morning. I can’t live like this, dude.” There was a long pause before Ted added, “I miss you.”  
  
Bill was finding it hard to speak past the totally bogus lump in his throat.  
  
“You’ve gotta get a break or something, right? They’ve gotta let you come home eventually, right?”  
  
“I dunno, dude. Maybe I’ll just run away. You’d let me hide out in your bedroom, right? Or are your dad and Missy gonna be using it again?”  
  
“Shut up, Ted!” Bill hissed. Ted laughed, and for a moment things were almost okay.  
  
“If I hear anything about a break, you will be the first to know, dude,” Ted said. “I’d better go, though. Rates from Alaska to San Dimas are most heinous.”  
  
As the call disconnected, Bill couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly, heinously, egregiously wrong.

Act 3: Wyld Stallyns Forever

Bill slowly buttoned his white shirt, feeling it strain across his shoulders and knowing it would fit slightly better if he took off the Van Halen t-shirt but also knowing there was no way he was going to do that.  
  
He wasn’t sure what had happened, exactly. No one seemed to be sure. Ted had just faded out like the radio edit of a lengthy rock song. Even with all the uncertainty, Bill had a theory, based on the two phrases just kept running through Bill’s mind.  
  
 _Military school is killing me…I can’t live like this, dude._  
  
The funeral was uncomfortable to say the least. Bill eventually just tuned out the speeches entirely. They weren’t talking about Ted. None of the words they were saying matched up with the way he’d seen his best friend. Nothing captured the boundless energy he’d always brought to everything they did.  
  
Bill almost wanted to charge up there and take the mic away, tell them the stories that actually mattered. Ted had been so much more than just “a good-hearted young man taken too soon.” Maybe he didn’t know who Joan of Arc was, and maybe his guitar playing wasn’t great, but Ted “Theodore” Logan was a legend all to himself.  
  
After the uncomfortable service was over, and the general parade of mourners had passed, Bill made his way up to the coffin. It didn’t even look like Ted. The short hair, the badly-fitted suit…he had to look away. Better to remember Ted the way he was, rather than this stranger.  
  
Looking surreptitiously around, Bill pulled his house key from his pocket and scratched a message into the varnished wood: WILD STALLYNS FOREVER  
  
“Party on, dude,” he said quietly. “I hope the afterlife is most triumphant.”  
  
Finally, he raised his arms as if holding one of Eddie Van Halen’s early Ibanez Destroyers, and offered a final air guitar salute to his best friend.

  



End file.
